I spent over half a year on this game, which I created while teaching myself Lua and other dev skills (so it’s my first ever game). Upon release, I am running into a problem where players don’t play my game. They just join and then immediately leave. I have no idea why. Can you guys help me figure it out?
Since this is my first game, I’d also like to know if that’s normal. I would say about 95% of players immediately leave. Does that happen to everyone or is something, indeed, wrong here?
Here is my game, it is a Wall Breaking Simulator game that was made primarily for mobile:
Ok so uh I played it for a bit and heres what I gathered.
First off why does the loading bar look like wood? It doesnt match anything else in the UI lol.
Second off, these games are usually bright colored for a reason, but yours is a little gray, so maybe brighten up the map and add some more stuff as its a little bland.
The UI could also use some work as it feels really cluttered.
Also not to sound harsh, but the game mechanics werent fun. The one thing about these types of games that keep players around is the satisfaction of everything, from when I played I didnt hear any sound effects, there arent any effects, and yeah.
What I would recommend is looking at similar games and seeing how they do it, cause it probably works.
Best of luck!
actually if I was a child Id probably play this (granted the stuff above happens)
Id recommend focusing ads on a younger audience, as people above the age of 13 will most likely not play this
The game used to be confusing, it has a lot going on. But I recently created a whole interactive tutorial zone so it really shouldn’t be. You can click on it to play it and tell me if you believe it is confusing somehow.
Also yeah, it is a simulator game. They have all been done a thousand times. Be assured that I have added my own spin and that it is of a generally higher quality then 99% of of them. Still, players don’t know that until they play it and would assume not when clicking on it.
Thank you, I appreciate the feedback. I’ll keep the loading bar in mind but I doubt it is the core issue. Does the UI feel cluttered because it takes up so much space on the screen? I assume you are referring to the Run Menu at the start cuz, yeah, it has a lot going on. Lots of info to show. Would you recommend just cutting a bunch of its info to make it look better?
Good idea on the color, I’ll make the room a bit brighter and less sad. Also sound, yeah. I actually muted my music and sounds for the tutorial since one guy told me he would rather them be off to focus on it. I agree that it is too quiet now.
Is this what you mean when you say the game mechanics aren’t fun or do you mean that the act of hitting the punching bag and then breaking through the wall with physics wasn’t fun (the core part of my game)?
Do you think people are leaving because they have the impression that my game sucks due to all these things or do you think there might be another reason? As we’ve hinted at, children will kinda play anything.
compared to other games the UI doesnt look good, its kinda bad not to be rude.
A lot of the stuff doesnt match, such as buttons dont match the text theme, the colors and that sorta thing
I think it could be much better if there was some effects and stuff to make it more appealing.
Also something that people may find really annoying is that it asks you to do the tutorial every time you join.
I’ve heard that “UI sucks” thing from a lot of people. I’m not sure how to fix it, honestly. I’m far from a graphic designer so my skills in that area are pretty bad. I think I just kinda gotta leave it where it is for now until I up my abilities on that front, unless you have specific ideas?
It actually will only ask players to do the tutorial if they haven’t already completed it or gone through the leave tutorial portal.
As for effects, I’m working on that now, thanks for the idea.
Hello, im just gonna give my opinion on the game and hopefully you can make it better and gain more players.
upon joining the game my character was thrown around randomly and teleported to a spawn area, then a loading screen appeared.
the loading screen should appear as you are loading into the game so players are not able to see all the glitches when you join.
second,
the lighting is very… dull?
theres very good lighting plugins on roblox, you can one named “Lighting presets” for free. I use it and its very good.
Third- The ui needs to be more colorful i think. the ui right now is very dark and not very consistent, i would choose probably 2-3 Bright colors to base my Ui on so it will be consistent and it looks nice.
Fourth -
the map is very basic from what ive seen so far, with the walls consisting of 1 color and being only boxes. try to make some different looking areas and switch it up a bit.
fifth -
I hear no music in the game, unless thats a bug?
Music makes the game seem more fun/Cheerful so adding some music might help.
also i like the tutorial, that looks really good!
So i hope my opinion helped a little on what to do with it.
the overall idea is good so keep trying!
(Ignore grammar mistakes. Also im new to the forum so lmk if i did something wrong)
Thanks, that was all very helpful. Especially the advice on the UI, as I’m struggling in that area. Since you just played I updated the map (my ‘minimal tutorial area’ design idea ended up being TOO minimal’) and fixed both the music and the lighting. If you have a minute, do you mind joining again and telling me what you think now?
As for the loading screen, yeah, that is something I’m still trying to figure out.
Try using some low poly asset packs to give more life to the buildings try using use brighter colours? Also when I first joined into the game my camera tweened first and then the loading screen appeared to me it looks like the game is unfinished a little. Is your loading screen set in ReplicatedFirst? Also the loading screen itself doesn’t really look appealing to me in a sense where if i was like 9 years old and saw someone had 3 fingers on one hand then I’d probably be a bit you know… on edge. Also I recommend you to turn off chat and leaderboard and then re-enable it until the player is loaded in it gives it more of a professional vibe rather than an image being enabled for 10 seconds and then disappearing. The end goal here though is to make sure you please the player as much as you could when they first join in. These are the small adjustments I recommend you to fix. I haven’t touched the game itself yet but I’m sure there’ll be other people reviewing it too. Good luck on your game developing!
Hello, i have tested again and i see that the lighting does look a little better, the music is also good, And i like the changed color and material for the wall in the starting area.
overall you made pretty good changes to start with!
i do have one more problem though…
when i rejoined my data was lost, so there is either a bug, or you didn’t intend to have data saved. either way it is something that needs to be fixed probably. (Note that i did not finish the tutorial because i had to write the message)
Weird. That’s a major bug that I wasn’t aware of and haven’t been able to reproduce in my testing. I’ll look into it. Could be that players are bugging out.
Tutorial data is wiped, yeah. The tutorial is pretty quick so if players leave before completing it, I reset their progress so they don’t rejoin mid tutorial and forget everything.
Also, yeah, I’ll change the loading screen a bit. Thanks for the feedback on it.
